A senator live-tweeted his efforts to halt a deportation of a child and his mother already in progress

Senator Bob Casey sent out a series of tweets over several hours on Wednesday, documenting in real time his efforts to persuade the Trump administration to halt the deportation of a mother and child who were already on a flight back to Honduras “to their possible death.”

The Pennsylvania Democrat tweeted that the child, a five-year-old boy, was eligible for the Special Immigrant Juveniles program that aids foreign children in the US who were abused, abandoned, or neglected, and that paperwork had been filed for him.

He said the Department of Homeland Security put the family on a plane regardless, and that only the White House could reverse the action.

Casey said the mother had witnessed her cousin’s murder back in Honduras and was being pursued by gangs before she and her son fled and sought refuge in the US.

They were detained in the Berks County Residential Center since late 2015, NBC 10 reported, and an application for Special Immigrant Juveniles Status had been submitted just this week.

“We literally were arguing to include this child while immigration was watching the plane take off,” attorney Bridget Cambria told NBC 10.

Casey tagged DHS as well as President Trump in his tweets, urging his followers to do the same, and pleaded for Trump to take action. Casey said later he eventually got ahold of Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus, who promised to investigate the case further.

Why? Because that’s the tone @realDonaldTrump has set- one in which pushing out a 5yr old and his mother is somehow a good idea.
— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) May 3, 2017

The gangs will target this mother and her child the moment they land in Honduras, yet Trump admin insists on this cruel policy.
— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) May 3, 2017

This 5yr old and his mother aren’t ‘bad hombres.’ They aren’t in a gang, they’re running from death- vulnerable and scared.
— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) May 3, 2017